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What Is Required for a Hard Money Loan?

June 29, 2020 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

When most people buy a house, they take out a loan with a traditional lender.  However, individuals who are interested in buying run down houses to fix them up to then sell or rent rarely qualify for traditional mortgages.  Instead, they seek hard money loans, which have short terms and give the investor more flexibility than a traditional loan.  Before you first enter the home flipping business, it’s important to know what is required for a hard money loan.

What Is Required for a Hard Money Loan?

What Is Required for a Hard Money Loan?

Of course, each lender will have their own requirements, but in general, there are three criteria that are most important when trying to secure this type of loan.  Not surprisingly, many of the requirements circle around cash on hand and experience.

Down Payment

Most banks require a 25 to 30% down payment for residential properties.

In general, a successful hard money loan fit this formula.  Consider the estimated after repairs retail value of the property.  Let say you expect to sell the property for $250,000 when you’re done fixing it up.  Maybe you purchased the property for $100,000.  You expect to complete the repairs for $60,000, and you also want to borrow enough to cover closing costs of, say, $15,000.  Your total comes to $175,000, or 70% of the expected value of the property.  If you use this formula, you will likely qualify for a hard money loan.

Cash Available

What Is Required for a Hard Money Loan?
Photo by Shane on Unsplash

Since hard money loans are inherently risky, the lender will take a close look at your cash reserves.  You will need substantial cash reserves to use during the renovation process to pay for things like HOA dues, interest payments on the hard money loan, insurance on the property, and other expenses.

The more cash you have available, the more likely you are to qualify for the loan.

Exit Strategy

The last thing the bank will consider is your exit strategy.  Most hard money loans only have terms of six to 18 months, so you must have a plan for what to do when the loan term ends.

For private properties, there are two basic exit strategies:

Sell

The most typical option is to immediately sell the property when you’re done renovating it.  You settle the hard money loan, get your profit, and are free to go on to invest in the next property.  Some investors go a step further and get a cash out refinance so they then have even more cash on hand to invest in the next property.

Rent

Another option is to renovate the property, then rent it.  When you rent it, the property is now making money.  You’ll be able to go to a traditional mortgage lender and get a traditional mortgage in place of your hard money loan.

Final Thoughts

If you are considering going into the real estate business, you must first learn what is required for a hard money loan.  When you meet the requirements, you’ll be able to secure your first loan.  After you have amassed more experience and cash, you will find that hard money loans are easier to obtain, and you’ll be able to grow your business.

Filed Under: Investing, loans Tagged With: hard money loan, loans, real estate

How to Make a Refinance Appraisal Checklist

May 4, 2020 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

If you’re looking to refinance your home, you will likely need to have an appraisal as it’s the first step to putting an official price value on your home.  You may not know where to start, but learning how to make a refinance appraisal checklist is the perfect place.  Once you do this, you can work on improving your property for the appraisal.

How to Make a Refinance Appraisal Checklist

How to Make a Refinance Appraisal Checklist

My husband and I recently called our real estate agent because we wanted to refinance our house.  She gave us several pieces of advice to prepare for an appraisal.

Get Rid of the Clutter

How to Make a Refinance Appraisal Checklist
Photo by Minh Pham on Unsplash

Most Americans have at least some clutter.  Your job is to get rid of the clutter in preparation for the appraisal, much the same way you would if you were preparing your home for sale.  Our real estate agent specifically said, “Make your house show ready.”  However, she also added that in general we didn’t have to make places like closets pristine for an appraisal.

Make a List of Improvements to the Home

Since you’ve lived in your home, what improvements have you made?  Make sure you have a list of what you’ve done and when you did it.  Since we moved in, we’ve replaced the water heater, the HVAC, and two bedrooms’ flooring.  Big ticket items like replacing the HVAC system help the appraiser increase the value of your home.

Make Easy Cosmetic Fixes

When you’re in your house every day, you tend not to notice the little things like the paint that is chipped off your kitchen cabinets or the hole in the dry wall where your child’s bedroom door handle hit the wall.  You might not notice dingy floorboards or dusty door hinges, but the appraiser will.

These items don’t cost much to fix, but they can increase the value of your home by creating the appearance that you care for your home and that it is well-maintained.

Look at the Curb Appeal

How to Make a Refinance Appraisal Checklist
Photo by Matt Chen on Unsplash

How does your house look on the outside?  Is the paint fresh or the siding clean?  Is the lawn mowed?  Nicely landscaped?  Or, do you have piles of clutter outside?

A tree fell in our backyard during a windstorm, and while we had taken care of most of it, the trunk of it still lay across our backyard.  The real estate agent was adamant that we must take care of that before the appraiser came.

Get Comps for the Neighborhood

How much do comparable houses in your neighborhood sell for?  Having this information gives you an idea of how much your house would likely sell for.  Making this information easily accessible to the appraiser also gives him a starting point.

Our real estate agent offered to put together a list of comps for us.  However, we didn’t need her to.  When we put in our application for refinance, the comps in our area were high enough and our mortgage low enough, that the bank didn’t even require an appraisal.

Final Thoughts

Now is a good time to consider a refinance based on the market.  If you’re wondering how to get started, hopefully this helps you learn how to make a refinance appraisal checklist.

Filed Under: Home, loans Tagged With: Home, mortgage refinance

Building A Monthly Budget: How to Calculate Your Costs

November 8, 2019 By Susan Paige Leave a Comment

Budgeting is always the hardest when first starting out. The idea of creating a spreadsheet with a breakdown of every monthly cost and expense is so intimidating that many people put it off for a long time.

All a budget is, in essence, is a well laid out plan. When calculating a budget, what you must do is calculate the difference between your anticipated income and your fixed costs so that you can get an idea of how much you have left for desirable expenses. You don’t have to be an accountant to know how to create a budget plan though, here are some easy tips.

·        Add Up Monthly Fixed Expenses

The first thing that you need to do when making a budget plan is to calculate your monthly fixed expenses. These include costs like rent, car insurance, payments on any auto or title loans, or insurance.

You can use a spreadsheet or budgeting app to keep things organized, and accurately access what your expenses look like each month.

·        Add Up Monthly Variable Expenses

Variable expenses are expenses that change month to month, and they can be a bit of a challenge to add to your budget plan. Calculating these costs is more of a judgment call than anything else, especially if they fluctuate greatly month to month.

Costs like groceries, gasoline, electricity and discretionary spending can vary monthly so setting aside a specific amount can be difficult. However, by averaging and overestimating variable costs like electricity or gasoline, you can write it into the budget without worrying that the actual costs will be more than what you’ve planned for.

Tips to Keep in Mind when Creating a Monthly Budget

Now that you’ve added up all your monthly costs, you know how much money you need to make ends meet. In a monthly budget, you want to compare these expenses to a monthly income. You don’t want to take into account a holiday bonus that you’re expecting in 6 months, because that isn’t affecting your expenses or income this month. For a monthly budget, use your monthly income to calculate any leftover funds after your expenses.

If you have a fixed income, such as a salary, or you are paid hourly with a set schedule, then this is easy. If your income is varied due to a fluctuating workload, then the best you can do is average your earnings.

Once you’ve calculated your excess income, you can figure out what to do with it. Ideally, you added discretionary spending as a line item in the budget, so your excess money shouldn’t just become spending cash. Any excess funds should go towards debt or savings. If you have more excess income than normal one month, feel free to spend it on entertainment or desirable expenses. Now that you’ve created a budget, you can spend money and still feel financially responsible.

Stick to Your Newly Created Monthly Budget

Now that you’ve gone through the work of crafting a monthly budget that works for you, know that you have a financial plan set. Having a monthly budget makes life easier and making a physical one can better help you visualize the numbers and make adjustments without guesswork.

Making a monthly budget is not the hard part though. The difficult aspect is sticking to the budget, tracking expenses, and not making a habit of exceeding your budget. Going out to eat is fun and enjoyable, but if you do it more than you should, your available income for the month will start to eat into any excess funds you have–and possibly exceed them! If you’ve calculated for the entire month though, splurging every now and then shouldn’t throw you off track. And if you do slip up, relax because you can always get right back on track next month! So enjoy your financially responsibility!

Image source: Pexels.com.

Filed Under: loans Tagged With: creating a debt plan, credit card debt, debt

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